Rather than spending money, I decided to re-purpose my HP Proliant Microserver N40L boxes that I previously had FreeNAS deployed to for ISCSI storage for my ESXi Nodes. As one server is currently not presenting any disks, I decided to build 2012 R2 directly on to it and found that after the initial build, it would remain stuck at the “Getting Devices Ready – 82%” stage. I rebuilt 4 times and had the same issue. Google being my friend, I ran a quick search and found that I wasnt the only one. The issue is related to the onboard NIC not being recognised and causing it to hang.

The solution? BIOS update!
Unfortunately, HP have decided that you must have a HP Care Pack or a valid warranty to be able to download the updated BIOS (really stupid!) but if you run a search for SP64420.exe, you should be able to find it. If not, drop me an email and I might be able to point you in the right direction.

BIOS updated, Server 2012 R2 re-deployed and there we go! I have 4 x 4TB discs currently in transit and will be slotting those in as soon as they arrive.